A teenage girl told detectives she was raped by an intruder in her Belle Glade home Thursday morning.

Authorities from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said the alleged attack happened just before noon on Northwest Avenue H Place. They said investigators are dealing with a strong language barrier because the family speaks Spanish, and there’s conflicting information about the assailant.

Advertisement

Related Content

One of the victim’s neighbors said she saw a stranger walking through her front yard moments before the alleged rape.

“I had a bad feeling because not many people [walk through] our neighborhood,” neighbor Jacqueline Joseph said. “My children open the window, and say ‘Hey, sir, why are you walking?’ And I said, ‘Don’t say nothing. You don’t know if it’s a good or bad person.'”

Joseph has security cameras outside her home, and detectives reviewed surveillance footage to see if an image of the stranger was captured.

The victim’s neighbors described Avenue H Place as a quiet, short residential street on the edge of town that doesn’t get much foot traffic.

“We live in the quiet part of the city,” neighbor Cleola Pringle said. “Once you go across the bridge, you might expect something like this, but when you live this far out, you don’t think anyone would ever come and invade a house, especially when someone’s home. It’s very scary.”